Among the traditional scholarly publishers, NPG has been an early leader in supporting open access - and standing up for scholarship against the inappropriate tactics of anti-open-access lobbyists. In 2007, it was Jim Giles' article in Nature that exposed the hiring of PR pitbull Eric Dezenhall and his bizarre strategies such as linking open access with government censorship, and NPG was among the first to disavow support for the ludicrous, quickly doomed PRISM anti-OA coalition attempt.
NPG has also been an early leader in supporting NPG authors' desires for open access, such as actively encouraging author self-archiving and being among the first to begin to compete in the open access environment. Following is a list of links to previous posts about NPG on The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics. Kudos and thanks to NPG for being a stellar example of how a long-time traditional publisher can approach the process of transitioning to open access.
2007:
Opposition to open access continues, while anti-OA coalition
attempt implodes
We all owe a debt of thanks to Nature and Jim Giles (and to
those who leaked the documents) for releasing the story on the American
Association of Publishers' hiring of PR pitbull Eric Dezenhall, who recommended
bizarre strategies such as linking open access with government censorship and
junk science, strategies which have been reflected in OA opposition efforts,
including PRISM. The latest on this can be found on Open
Access News.
2011:
Nature Publishing Group and Scientific Reports: getting
serious about OA competition
2008:
Kudos: Nature self-archiving on behalf of authors
2007:
NEJM and Nature evolving toward open access
